Jamaican Slave Names in Plantation Inventories, 1731-1788

Dataset CreatorsMargaret Williamson, Dartmouth CollegeHazel-Dawn DumpertJohn Bell, Dartmouth CollegeContributorsScott Millspaugh, Dartmouth CollegeLaura Braunstein, Dartmouth CollegeJohn M. Wallace, Dartmouth CollegeKristen BellThe dataset draws on plantation inventories and lists from Jamaica between 1731 and 1788. It includes 3,162 listings of enslaved workers, all identified by name and often with additional information. The purpose of the research that led to its creation was to assess statements made in the secondary literature about the types of name given to enslaved people, to define some of these types and to lay the ground for analyzing their distribution.1 In addition to information derived from the original sources, therefore, it analyzes the types of name commonly recorded for the enslaved. Although some of these types are referred to in the secondary literature, they have not previously been defined or quantified.Almost two-thirds of the names in this dataset can be attributed to seven types. In order of their frequency, they are: hypocoristic (pet or diminutive) names, classical or classicizing names, Akan-Twi day-names, place names, other African names, Biblical names, and aristocratic titles. Two much smaller categories are the names of months or English days of the week. The basis for these classifications is discussed further below.The main evidence for the naming of enslaved people in the eighteenth-century New World is of several kinds: narratives, including memoirs by both enslavers and (occasionally) the enslaved; runaway advertisements; and inventories. Of these, plantation inventories are the most copious, and provide evidence of many thousands of names given to enslaved people.Plantation inventories define enslaved individuals as units of property and evaluate them for their labor power and their exchange value. Many lists formed part of documents involving the transfer of property, such as sales, mortgages and wills, and list enslaved people together with land, and sometimes other property such as livestock and tools; others survive as freestanding lists forming part of estate records.The examples transcribed in this dataset are only a small sample of those in existence, stored in archives, government offices and private papers in Jamaica, the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere.2 The selection here was determined by accessibility rather than by any attempt to be representative, and is drawn from records preserved outside Jamaica. Two sets of records, those from Blue Mountain and Hope Estate, were accessed directly during visits to archives, the others in reproduction. The increasing availability of digitized copies of originals should make the collection of data such as this easier; however, as detailed below, standardizing them to produce a usable dataset is a major, and time-consuming, project.The lists included here are of two types. Those from earlier in the century–for Blue Mountain and Orange River estates–formed part of documents such as mortgages enacting the transfer of land between owners. These lists, whose purpose was to record land ownership, and that saw enslaved people primarily as property associated with land, provide only minimal information about them. In 1731 only 112 individual names are listed in a schedule attached to a mortgage on Blue Mountain, under general age and gender headings: Men, Women, Hardy Boys, and Boys & Girls. The comparable 1741 Orange River list, also produced for mortgage purposes, likewise consists of a simple list without even headings, and with male and female names only partially separated. So insignificant was the detail about enslaved people for the creators of these documents that the 1752 Blue Mountain listing, documenting the redemption of a mortgage, is an almost exact copy of the 1731 one, even though some of the detail – the ages of those categorized as ‘Hardy Boys’ – cannot have been accurate 21 years later.The later inventories in the dataset, however, all produced during the owners’ lives, are almost all part of the process of accounting for the management as well as the value of their property, in which enslaved people formed the most costly single item.3 These listings, including those for Blue Mountain, are more detailed and systematic, arranging entries under headed columns and sometimes alphabetizing them. For 1777, the Blue Mountain inventory includes columns headed Qualifications (elsewhere called occupation), Condition, and Value. Other inventories from the latter part of the century go into yet more detail. The 1778 inventory for York Estate alphabetizes the listing and includes individuals’ numerical age and ‘Country,’ while in 1788 the Hope Estate inventory includes columns indicating whether an individual was African-born or creole. However, the Hope records do not include a column for age: age is mentioned only occasionally in a general, unlabeled, column, and then using a mixture of age categories and numerical ages.This increase in detail is in line with the tendency noted by others for the amount of detail recorded in inventories to increase in the course of the eighteenth century.4 However, the increase found here probably also reflects the fact that these records were preserved outside Jamaica, along with correspondence between mostly absentee owners and their local agents.5 By contrast, despite a general increase in detail, Burnard notes that even as late as 1775 over one-third of the inventories he studied in the Jamaica archives “gave no more information than name and value.”6 The surviving correspondence between owners and local managers (attorneys and overseers) of the plantations represented here shows the former often engaging in detailed discussion about management, including, for example, the purchase and treatment of slaves, which will likely have been informed by the detail provided in inventories.No two of the inventories in the dataset use exactly the same format, except those (like Phillipsfield and Pleasant Hill in 1784) produced for the same owner at the same date. Nonetheless, the rationale underlying the categories chosen – to assess slaves’ labor power, and thus their usefulness as workers and their financial value – is clear. Most of these inventories include a column for monetary value, and the other categories included – for example, age, gender, and health (‘Condition’) – all have a bearing on value. Even an individual’s provenance (listed under the headings ‘African’, ‘Creole’ or ‘Nation’), included later in the century, pertains to his or her capacity as a worker, in multiple ways. Those newly arrived from Africa were less valuable as workers before they had adjusted to punishing plantation labor (a period called ‘seasoning,’ during which a significant number died); on the other hand, those born in Jamaica (‘Creoles’) provided evidence that the workforce was able to replenish itself, a matter of increasing anxiety for planters as demands for abolition grew.7 Even distinctions between African ethnicities pertain to financial value and to management decisions: more than one owner instructs his local managers to buy slaves of a certain ethnicity and to avoid others. Coromantees, for example, were valued as strong workers but also feared for their courage and independent spirit, and some planters preferred Igbos (Eboes), who were regarded as more tractable.8How reliable are these records as a source for names actually in use in eighteenth-century Jamaica? Because they were produced by and for enslavers, it cannot be assumed that they necessarily represent the names in use by and among their bearers. Indeed, evidence from runaway advertisements, among other sources, shows that the enslaved often used other names, or multiple names, among themselves or as aliases. As Burnard points out, we know next to nothing about how these lists of names were compiled, and the compilers may not have been involved in the daily life of those whose names they recorded. Appraisals of property for probate purposes, including slaves, were usually done by a peer of the owner – other plantation owners, for example – and thus lacked close everyday acquaintance with the running and personnel of an estate. There is, indeed, clear evidence in the Blue Mountain inventories of the absence of such close acquaintance: as already mentioned, the 1752 inventory includes information copied from 1731 that cannot have been based on direct observation. In the case of records produced by a local manager, or for an owner actively involved in managing the property, such as Nathaniel Phillips in 1784, there is a stronger argument for assuming some familiarity on the part of the lister with the individuals involved.9Linked with the question of whether these names were in everyday use is the issue of who gave them – a question that these records beg and at the same time may illuminate. The answer cannot be known for certain, and probably no single conclusion is possible. Certainly there are narrative accounts by both the enslaved and enslavers in the New World showing that enslavers often gave new names to slaves,10 and that as in other cultures (as documented by Orlando Patterson) they attached importance to the gesture as part of the exertion of power.11Inventories such as these provide evidence on both sides of the question. The Eurocentric character of many of the names suggests that they were given by enslavers; so does the occurrence of clusters of names given to newly acquired slaves (often noted as ‘New Negroes’), many of which are also Eurocentric.12 On the other side of the argument are the names of African origin found in the records. These have been taken by some scholars as evidence that the enslaved named themselves, and even that they took pride in their heritage. However, an important subset of African names, the day-names from West Africa belonging to the Akan-Twi language group, clearly became creolized, to the extent that their African significance was eventually overlaid with derogatory associations derived from enslaved status; there are also clear instances in which they were given by enslavers, not the enslaved. In the analysis of these names, therefore, Akan-derived names have been distinguished from others of African origin. In the latter group it is very occasionally possible to discern a closer relationship with African naming practices: for example, two women on York plantation in 1778, listed consecutively and with the same age and occupation, are named Attaw, which means ‘female twin’ in Akan-Twi. This suggests that they were able to name themselves or to influence their naming, a phenomenon that is likely to be under-recorded.As this discussion indicates, some of what inventories can tell us is discernible only in the inventories themselves in their raw form. But the aggregated data could be used to address other questions about whether, and how, naming is linked to other recorded details about individuals – whether, for example, Samson or Hercules might have been given to people whose work required strength such as masons. It may also be useful for purposes unconnected with naming: for example, examining correlations between other attributes of the enslaved such as age, gender and, especially, monetary valuation. Any conclusions would obviously benefit from larger datasets than a single inventory yields, and making the material searchable for such purposes requires that the entries be standardized. The diversity of formats made such standardization the biggest challenge in the whole enterprise.2010-2016EnglishJamaica1731-1788RegisterBlue Mountain Plantation 1731, 1752, 1759, 1765, 1771, 1777 and Orange River 1740: Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock, Derbyshire, UK, Fitzherbert Papers.York Plantation 1778: University of Exeter, UK, Gale-Morant Papers.Spring Plantation 1784: Bristol Record Office, UK, Smyth Manuscripts.Pleasant Hill and Phillipsfield Plantations 1784: National Library of Wales, UK, Slebech Papers.Hope Plantation 1785 and 1788: Huntington Library, USA, Stowe-Brydges Papers.The dataset was produced in three stages. Information was initially transcribed from plantation inventories into Excel spreadsheets, either directly from the archived manuscripts or from reproductions thereof (photocopied, microfilmed, or digitized.) The headings used for these first-stage transcriptions were derived from the inventories themselves, and included the following: year, month, parish, owner, estate name, name as written, age, African or Creole, nation, occupation, condition, and value. Since no single inventory includes all these headings, many fields are unpopulated in individual records.The project team included a specialist in the interpretation of eighteenth-century manuscripts, who contributed transcriptions and reviewed all previous transcriptions; she also developed many of the guidelines for representing the handwritten originals. Because of variations in both orthography and the way information was presented, procedures had to be created for interpreting, representing, and, where appropriate, standardizing, the following: the spelling of names, abbreviations, capitalizations, dittos and group headings, guesses where the original was unclear, and punctuation. The protocols followed were set out in a set of Editing Notes. Excerpts from these notes are reproduced below for anything not covered in this discussion.The most challenging orthographical issue was the spelling of names, and a Standardized Names column was added giving a single version for names with variant versions. Generally a name has been standardized to the most common variant spelling. Almost all the records list only a single name, with only occasional double names. Double names often include matronymics or (less often) patronymics, or descriptors to distinguish individuals (e.g. Long, Little, Young, Old, Mulatto, Quadroon, occupational descriptions, or ethnic identifiers.) Very occasionally a second name looks more like a modern surname, especially for skilled men. In all these cases one name was taken as primary for standardization and (later) for categorization purposes, and the other as secondary, though this is not a hard and fast distinction. The Final Name column combines names that did not require standardization together with standardized versions of names where applicable.Individual names and the transcription issues mentioned above are the only instances in which a thorough standardization was attempted: thus, under the headings African or Creole, Nation, Occupation and Condition, the original headings and entries have been transcribed as closely as possible. Also reproduced without further interpretation are entries under the heading Nation: terms such as Coromantee, Igbo, Chamba, etc, which represent eighteenth-century planters’ understanding of African ethnicities.Under Value, entries were again reproduced exactly; the figures may represent either pounds sterling or Jamaican pounds.The next set of issues concerning transcription of the originals to the Condition, and Occupation the of a set of categories in the in the way information is represented in the way it is between and the occasional of information that does not any of the The columns in these inventories may at the headings that became in the century as already mentioned, inventories from earlier are less This means that some material had to be and a new column for example of of information even an inventory is Plantation 1784, which has only three and But the of information found in the latter two often for example, the Occupation column includes the entries the and with the while entries include ‘New and These entries can be by the fact that the inventory did not include a column for which would have many of them. But the of the inventory to record the labor capacity and value of the enslaved workers does not of the of information involved the Condition, and Occupation column or the new The column was only an number was only general age categories were they were to either the or the column, as such as or were listed in the others such as ‘Hardy or were listed under Notes. Information is not between for example on Pleasant Hill plantation in is as a in the Occupation column, so his as a is not included under column was also used for information that did not such as on the ‘New of time on the information about estate ownership, to what to be the same individual on other were also it was whether a given individual was included under a heading such as and the general heading is recorded in the the next of columns were created for information. column for gender was using the names themselves as a as well group headings as or and the order of listing, which from workers to the or and from male to Information about owners’ names was into with name, name, and added to in order to in to these owners in other for example the of the listed in the for the of the of are often distinguished by were added for estate for individual on that estate and eventually for individual the whole dataset and and information for were added to to other sources, as well as details for the the columns for Name and were many scholars have to types of name, the used to define them are The Name defined for this dataset are as aristocratic Akan-derived other of the Of the names in the 3,162 listings almost two-thirds to one of these names were often given to male slaves, usually but not to in The origin of this is possible include the naming of It is that this is the only name to gender as well as to enslaved though the names themselves are all other common types of name are given to both women and as well as to could be given to both examples include such as that these were given in a of names are or versions of names in common such as for for for This is the only group that to any extent with the names of but documents like recorded the version for the hypocoristic version for the enslaved mentioned African names were into two Akan-derived names, and other African names. day-names, common in Jamaica and the New World to a used group of names derived from the West African Akan-Twi language and on a by of the they are: and for and for women many The between names and days is not they have been standardized here to the listing found in of includes not only names found in literature but also names derived from but used in the classicizing of eighteenth-century The names and for example, of like many have the of names by way of – in this case The listed as Biblical are the was to include only those likely to have Biblical for example, or In general Biblical names to have been less common in Jamaica than on the columns were added for the names of English days of the and months such as or which are probably a variant on African names, like the included in a column, though a were found in the are names indicating order of a such as Attaw, mentioned are as names is not a and these categories are not names more than one For example, the hypocoristic name could also be regarded as a version of the Biblical names or while may be a hypocoristic version of the Akan-derived example of a name that is to is the classical female name which to have with the Akan-derived on The with its many variant cannot be to one or the names like these were not and it would be to do so with recorded names were to that is, their and sometimes their as they were used in new But even make it possible to the variations in naming from one time and place to a column was added for on the names, such as other instances of their or the column primarily to the records and their in this dataset, the column to the of order to as closely as possible to the original are For example, from it is to that is an for However, that are not clear are out in the For example, the of a the is with a general, has been made to the of the original where possible. This includes that do not modern and This into in the Occupation and or order to that do not to the order of the original instances of a on the original have been in the with the in the Occupation column, is listed as a and, directly Occupation is listed as then is listed as not the copied is an the original has been followed as closely as possible while of the is not a is For example, Hope 1788: On to in the column, the age is this age is and so can be listed as On to however, only one condition, is Because on its would be to interpretation the question of whether the individual is mostly or the heading is an is in this the column under the heading the interpretation and transcription of the manuscripts are with and question the question the except in the Standardized Name column, where it a a or a or name, only the or in question are For instances additional information is added to a column, the entries are by For In the Occupation column, is listed under the general heading However, in the also notes that he is a the The in the Occupation column, therefore, is at the the was made a with a and further for the of the of for the Dartmouth Dartmouth and Dartmouth